Actually doing the thing is very helpful. No surprises there. Lots of excuses found though 😅
Milk eggs sleep alone time 🥛🍳😴🧑🏽🌾
Playing with “printing” brushes, learning new techniques. Fun was had 🍓
Collage + gouache combo on the left. Gouache + acrylic on right. I love how the nasturtiums turned out. The poppy only meh. The lily mildy delightful.
Dahlia tuber sales are starting. May the gods help me resist.
I sometimes wish I could write more about what I draw. However, the reason I draw or paint is to eliminate the use of words. So… yeah.
Alison was so excited to show me a rose bush budding in the middle of winter. I’m pretty sure this is a dream mostly because I can’t find evidence of this discussion. Equally important: it’s summer over there.
Collage! Real life one! I enjoyed making this. In the process I even answered questions I didn’t know I had. Also this is not a precious sketchbook and wow it’s been liberating!
No frills, just the disarmingly vigorous beauty of the ordinary.
— Christian Ouwens describing Klaas Gubbels’ studio.
Dear husband. Please.
(A digital collage via Procreate)
@Miraz I have a much revised opinion about winter — that is: I’m loving it more every year! Complete opposite to when I moved to Australia from the tropics circa 10++ years ago.
Spontaneous video call with my childhood friends for a baby shower. It was so so so cup-filling. I’ve missed them both so much and I’m so grateful T called so I could be part of M’s celebration.
Exam deadline tomorrow. Naturally I’m on eBay looking at terrarium plants and chrysanthemums and considering bidding for a sweet jumper not available in Australia, but is already in Australia. Should I buy it now?!
@JohnPhilpin a career change! 😅
Type. Delete. Type. Delete…….. I am this. No, no, no. No I am not that. But maybe I should? Arg. (Squishes face with palms.)
If it’s not obvious, I am mildly panicking about mid-life!
Clean as you go, please! Digital sketchbook via Procreate.
Reliable, day-brightening babies.
Finished study of a bearded iris from this afternoon’s session (’painting’ via Procreate). The ruffles were a fun challenge to nut out - I could have kept going but my alarm to pick up the kids brought me back to earth. I really appreciate the term study as I learned a fair bit from this exercise.
A fragile point of interest in the winter garden. Imagining this with snow ala Piet Oudolf’s work.
@dwalbert how stunning - this is a dream of mine. Hopefully in spring! (Australian winter now so everything's quiet.) What are the cherry reds - salvias?
There are moments when raising young children when I really, really want to tell them, “whatever you do, don’t ever have kids."
But of course, I can’t and don’t say it.
I’m going to attempt the Pressed Flowers hat by Amy Christoffers. Fingers crossed youtube can save my ambitious arse 🧶
A spell of sickness that started with me. Kids home for close to a week now. Even M is napping! He never does this. Must be really bad. I’m sort of emerging from the depths. Still get tired quite quickly. I bought heaps of yarn for myself and nano-bugs, lego, and modelling clay for the kids. Yawn 🥱
@manton I’m excited for this!! Does it have to be a particular protocol for sign in? Curious about the criteria there. Sign in with Gmail / Instagram (for example) to verify could be useful for typical* social media folk, eg my friends! 😅 (*My tone here is not at all condescending!!)
@jean I just finished watching the whole thing and enjoyed the discussion! If I was the internet wizard, I’d probably wave my wand and assign a domain name + an opt in basic website ala Now page for every single human! 😅🧙🏽♀️
@ohhelloana.blog every word is true for me too.
@jean A Body on the Beach would be my suggestion. It’s not as literary as Ellis Peters’ work but it’s cozy and the setting and characters have grown on me!
@manton I’m glad this made it out of your drafts. Well written and well considered post.
@jean I just finished! It’s really good I’m onto the next. I love the writing style too 🤍
@manton and it’s really good too! One of my photos was tagged as a dahlia with sunlight filtering through the leaves. That’s a really descriptive and useful alt text (never mind that it was a chrysanthemum haha), infinitely better than what I would have typed (ie pink flower).
@manton so interesting (the polarisation over AI). I really wanted to be part of a mastodon instance long ago but it required alt text for every single thing and if you don’t do it you’re basically the devil. I never want to exclude those who need alt text but also it took the joy away from sharing so I left. The specific use of AI for alt text is perfection and imo helps rather than harms.